Veteran journalist: Gov't officials peddling fake news must be held to higher standard

MANILA, Philippines — Government officials and employees who peddle “fake news” should be held to a higher standard.

Citizen journalist and blogger Inday Espina-Verona stressed this point Thursday during the third Senate hearing into the proliferation of false information in the Philippines.

Varona said that the Filipinos do not need legislation against the spread of fake news, which she called “deliberate and systematic.”

However, she said that government officials and employees must be held accountable to the Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

“The president gets mad and he hurls fake news charges for every report that he doesn’t agree with even when these have clearly been vetted... But we have Secretary [Harry] Roque defending on a spurious fake marketplace of ideas the deliberate spread of disinformation by government officials,” Varona said.

She cited the case where former National Irrigation Administration head Peter Laviña and President Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson spread a false graphic of a young child who allegedly had been raped and brutally murdered.

It later turned out that the child on the photo is from Brazil.

“They cannot separate their Facebook accounts from their duties as government officials because they’re not supposed to follow one standard in the office and follow another one outside,” Varona said.

Senate committee on public information and mass media chair Sen. Grace Poe last month filed Senate Bill 1680 which seeks to amend RA 6713 to penalize those in government who publish or disseminate false information in any platform.

Singling out of government workers?

Roque, who earlier slammed the proposed legislation, maintained that any law criminalizing fake news is unconstitutional.

“To begin with, the Constitution says there should be no law abridging the freedom of expression. Any law which will criminalize fake news will obviously be in violation of this proscription because it is a law that would abridge freedom of expression,” the presidential spokesperson said.

He said that the proposed law singles out government employees and officials.

“That to me is additionally infringing on equal protection because we are in effect singling out government. There is no basis for singling out that only government employees should have liability when they spread fake news,” Roque said.

Poe dismissed this, saying the proposed law “applies to all” but she insisted that those working in the government “are to be held to a higher standard.”

Roque, who cited a US Supreme Court decision, also argued that fake news is not necessarily antithetical to freedom of expression.

“Here the emphasis is we must protect the free marketplace of ideas because ultimately the true test for truth is the power of an idea to be accepted in the free marketplace of ideas, the assumption being people can discern the truth from what is false,” he said.